Safety must always be our first consideration. Even in high risk sports such as climbing the intention is to climb not fall, so we place protection. If we tramp the first thing we do aside from being well equipped and prepared, is to tell someone responsible where we are going, what we are doing and when we will be back etc. If our intention is to replicate an episode of man v wild then we would find a good psychiatrist, or have a cup of tea and a lie down.
Programmes that teach people to survive are ridiculous because they miss out Tramping 101, which is to teach people how to tramp safely. Because in teaching them we minimise the risk of them having to survive in the first place.
Sadly, the only place that a programme like this could exist is on free to air TV, because it’s just not that exciting or dramatic. But I would far sooner be a live tramper than a dead ‘survivor’
Thanks Bear, your contribution to the deluded people in this world is to be commended.
I agree about the safety priorities of course. Despite my general grumpiness I'm inclined to give the guy the benefit of the doubt, without further information, that possibly he wasn't trying to mimic TV. It might have just been a random SAR person on the ground making an on-the-side comment or comparison out of frustration, which spread as more of a rumour than was intended. Responsible media won't report this sort of stuff without being able to verify facts or sources, and that's because they sometimes turn out to be wrong. I find it just as believable that he did what he did *without* intending to mimic anything on TV. People do dumb things all the time.
That's a fair comment.
I suppose I would expect the benefit of the doubt if I were to stuff up, so I will stop my grizzling:)
well I dont wear it
he was extremely experienced walking in the hunuas he must have known the tracks well, he was in there virtually every wekend and hadnt been lost before, yet he gets lost for three days, he claims he wandered off on a bait track, but I think he would have been able to work out how to get back onto the track, or one of the tracks, there arent a lot of tracks in the park.
he had far too much food for a day walk, he knew how much food he needed for a day walk.
he covered a large distance, nearly 40k's but never found his way out he did a massive circle and there were several places he could have exited the park yet he kept turning a circle staying within the park, rather remarkable....
he did martial arts, some martial arts people seek out extreme forms of exercise.
he wsasnt found because he didnt want to be found until the last day when he came out on the road when he'd had enough.
I didn't exactly mean to suggest it's not true, but without more confirmation I can imagine alternative scenarios that might have meant he wasn't planning to be out longer than a day, and I can also imagine plenty of ways that false rumours could be accidentally spread.
From the interviews it sounds as if he'd decided to pull some sort of Bear after he got lost, anyway, maybe ignorantly of the extra trouble it would cause, but he might have just said something off-hand when collected that was wrongly interpreted by a random person as meaning he'd intended to do this from the beginning.
The whole thing sounds really bad on his part, whichever way you look at it, but other people totally ignorant of the SAR system and how to be safe might have reacted the same way.
Its pretty clear he was incompetent and not thinking rationally, and how his thinking process evolved over the course of the days he spent out there, who knows.
But as for being mischeivous or trying to pull a publicity stunt then I think the jury is out.
Just a classic case of petrol in the tank but no oil in the engine.
Its a pity that papers are sold by sensationalism as the moment public attention shifts (and that lasts about 12 hours these days)journalists move on without finnishing the story. Lets face it theres more of a story in a tramper having to be pulled out in desperate circumstances than there is in just another nutter taking up time. The back story just dosnt have the same pull.
Sounded to me like he didnt realise he was lost till most of a day later. His partners might not of been able to raise the alarm earlier as they were also in the bush.
after being ovedue a day he should know a search party will come looking for him... he probably assumed he'd find his way out quickly, but if you dont then you can end up walking into an area thats already been searched. totally invalidating the search and dragging it out... he should have estimated his location and worked out how long it would take him to get out or get to a recogniseeable location, if he exceeeded his time he really needed to stop at 24 hours at the latest when a search would definitely be underway and he should have left a trail so searchers had a better chance of finding him if they crossed his trail... he doesnt sound like he really thought through how his actions would cause problems or how he could help speed his discovery..
Out of interest, how do people see this guy in Nelson Lakes by comparison with the Hunua Range guy?
